It is that time of the year when noted authors from across the world land in Goa to share their thoughts and their inspiration for writing. The 13th Goa Arts and Literature Festival (GALF) will see several interesting book discussions, poetry readings and book releases. GALF 2025 will be inaugurated by two of India’s most celebrated writers, Sahitya Akademi award winner Shanta Gokhale and academic, writer and poet, Sumana Roy. On February 13 at the International Centre Goa (ICG) Dona Paula, the festival will be opened at 5 pm with the keynote addresses by both the eminent writers. The inaugural will also see the unveiling of the official GALF 2025 artwork, exclusively created by the well-known Goan artist, Sonia Rodrigues Sabharwal and a poetry reading by Ramesh Ghadi. The evening will conclude with an exclusive book discussion of the award-winning Scottish historian William Dalrymple’s latest book, ‘The Golden Road; how ancient India transformed the world’ with Padma Bhushan awardee Dr Vidya Dehejia.
Damodar Mauzo, Jnanpith award winner and co-curator of GALF said, “GALF is different from the hundred odd literature festivals in India. The deliberations are serious and the ambience is intimate and homely, making it a unique festival.”
Over the next two days, February 14 and 15, the festival will see numerous authors share their journey on writing books that are close to their hearts. Some of the books that will be discussed will include British translator of Korean fiction Deborah Smith, whose translation of ‘The Vegetarian’ by Han Kang won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016; noted herpetologist and Padma Shri awardee, Romulus Whitaker’s book, ‘Snakes, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll’, co-authored with his wife Janaki Lenin; RS Nilkantan’s political commentary, ‘South vs North: India's Great Divide’, SN Kannanari’s ‘Chronicle of an Hour and a Half’ which won the 2024 Atta Galata Award and the Crossword Book Award for Best Fiction; South African writer, Shubnum Khan and her novel, ‘The Djinn waits a hundred years’, historian Manu Pillai’s latest book, ‘Gods, Guns & Missionaries’; internationally acclaimed journalist, Anjan Sundaram and his award winning memoirs and Aparajith Ramnath, award-winning historian of science, technology, and business with his book, ‘Engineering a Nation: The Life and Career of M Visvesvaraya’ among many others.
Acclaimed writers and poets at GALF
Shanta Gokhale
Shanta Gokhale, an alumna of Bristol University, UK, has been a lecturer in English. She is a novelist, columnist, playwright, translator, theatre critic and screen-writer. Besides three novels in Marathi, she has authored several books in English on Marathi and Indian theatre. She has won awards for her novels, translations, non-fiction books and screenplays at state and national levels. Her literary work of sixty years has been acknowledged with lifetime achievement awards from some of the country’s literature festivals and theatre organisations. She is the recipient of the Sangeet Natak Akademi award for overall contribution to the performing arts and the Sahitya Akademi award for her translation of Laxmibai Tilak’s autobio-graphy.
Saharu Nusaiba Kannanari
Saharu Nusaiba Kannanari is a writer based out of Kerala. His first novel, Chronicle of an Hour and a Half, published earlier this year won the Crossword Book Award and Atta Galatta Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize in fiction category. The book was also shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature and Godrej-Mumbai Lit Live! Literary Award. His next book, ‘The Menon Investigation’, is scheduled for publication in 2025.
William Dalrymple
William Dalrymple is one of the co-founders and co-directors of the world's largest writers' festival, the annual Jaipur Literature Festival. His book ‘The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World’ will be discussed.
Sumana Roy
Sumana Roy is the author of two works of non fiction, ‘How I Became a Tree’ and ‘Provincials; Plant Thinkers of Twentieth-Century Bengal,’ a work of literary criticism; ‘Missing: A Novel’; ‘My Mother’s Lover and Other Stories’; and two collections of poems, ‘Out of Syllabus’ and ‘VIP: Very Important Plant’. She teaches at Ashoka University, Haryana.
Shubnum Khan
Shubnum Khan is a South African writer and artist whose second novel, ‘The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years’ was selected as a New York Times Editors Choice, an Indie Next Pick, a Library Reads Pick and made NPR’s list of Books We Love in 2024. In 2025, it was longlisted for the Dublin Literary Prize.
Romulus Whitaker
‘Snakes, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll’, co-authored with his wife Janaki Lenin, portrays the early, reptile-obsessed life of Romulus Whitaker in northern New York state, and move to India in 1951 at age eight. His accolades include an Emmy Award, Whitley Award for Nature, Rolex Award for Enterprise and India’s Padma Shri.
Manu Pillai
A winner of the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar for his first book, ‘The Ivory Throne’, Manu S Pillai is a historian and the author of five books, most recently ‘Gods, Guns & Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity’.